One Illinois transgender Catholic reckons with his faith as the church shifts

Harrison Price remembers when he first started feeling unwelcome in the Catholic church. It was 2015 when the Supreme Court was considering Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that guaranteed the right marriage for LGBTQ+ couples.

“In the bulletin, there was a big note that had an image, like, you know, bathroom-sign-type image of a man and a woman holding hands, and it was like, ‘Same-sex marriage is not God’s way. One man, one woman is right,'” Price said. “That was the first time I felt that dread.”

Though Price hadn’t fully come to understand his gender identity as a transgender man at that point in his adolescence, he knew he wasn’t straight.

“Seeing that sort of hateful message, at least for me, really reinforced the idea that not only are there people in general who are not safe here, but I’m not safe here,” he said.

After distancing himself from his Catholic upbringing in Missouri and even rejecting religion for a while, Price’s move to Champaign-Urbana in 2021 led him to explore a different denomination, the Community United Church of Christ.